Oceanside  MiraCosta College theater professor Tracy Williams knows exactly how it feels to be the proverbial frog in the pot.

“We needed a musical that we could handle,” she explained. “I decided I wanted to do ‘Guys and Dolls’ because we have a whole cadre of character men on campus right now. And it’s not a real dancing show. But it turned out to be a far larger show than I thought it would be.

“As I started to work on it, I realized there was acting, singing, a little dancing and many dialects. Then there’s the stage direction ‘melee ensues,’ which is a bar fight. I don’t know how I overlooked that. But there isn’t anything in this that the students haven’t risen to.”

Based on the short stories of Damon Runyon, “Guys and Dolls” follows a host of distinct characters in the underbelly of 1930s and 1940s New York City. They’re gamblers, gangsters and entertainers.

At the heart of this story is Nathan Detroit, who hosts a floating craps game wherever he can find a place. To raise money to rent a spot, he bets that high-stakes gambler Sky Masterson can’t get a date with a doll of Nathan’s choosing — and he chooses the pretty yet do-good Sarah Brown, a prim member of the Save a Soul mission near Times Square. Of course, Sky and Sarah fall in love, with many obstacles in their way.

Then there’s Nathan’s long-suffering fiancée and nightclub singer Miss Adelaide, who has been after Nathan for years to set a wedding date and give up gambling. When a big-time gangster from Chicago threatens Nathan unless he holds a game, the stakes become higher still.

The show won five Tony Awards in 1950 and boasted such musical theater classics as “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” “A Bushel and a Peck,” “If I Were a Bell” and “Luck be a Lady.”

Early on, Williams made the decision to widen the musical’s time period for the sake of the costumes. She felt that whether the costume was from the 1920s or 1930s, it should be what looks best on the actor.

“It works because the characters are so broadly written and cartoonish in manner,” she said. “There’s really not that much difference in those time periods, and it gave us the freedom to blend years together and make people look great. I knew I just didn’t want the mission band to look like pioneers in long skirts and bonnets. We also wanted the men to look masculine and the nightclub singers to look sexy, but appropriate for college coeds.”

She also decided on a first for MiraCosta — a blend of live musicians and recorded music. The idea is to give the music the spark of live musicians, but the sound of a lush pit orchestra, all on a limited budget.

“The music we are using is digital, so we can take out the instruments that are playing live,” she explained. “That way, we create the sound of a full orchestra and save thousands of dollars.”

Despite the fact that the show turned out to be more difficult than she anticipated, Williams is quite pleased with the results. The cast recently performed a few numbers at a nursing home to rave reviews.

“They were so happy,” she said. “If we get nothing but happy faces walking out of the show, then it will make my whole semester.”